Gwohngdongwaa Pengyam (廣東話拼音 Gwohng2dong1waa2 Peng3yam1) is an improved Romanization system for the Cantonese dialect of Chinese. It has considered several shortcomings of the current Yale, Sydney Lau, Penkyamp and Jyutping Romanization systems and has improved on these accordingly.

Table of contents
1 Alphabet
2 Yunmus
3 Orthography
4 Tones

Alphabet

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P (q) S T U W Y

Shengmus (Consonants aided by International Phonetic Alphabets. In order to see proper display of IPA, you must download a Unicode font)

Special Attention

  • C is [ts'] as "tz" in Politzer.
  • J [tz] is the unaspirated form of C.
  • q is a glottal stop, Arabic "hamsa", as it appears in Cantonese interjection lâq, which is interchangeable with lâg.

Yunmus

Vowels:

  • long: aa(ah) eh(ee) i oh(oo) u oe ue
  • short: a e o
  • diphthongs1: aay(ai) ooy(oi) uy aaw(au) iw ay ey oy aw ow
  • diphthongs2: single vowels and diphthongs1 preceded by semi-vowel w, such as way as in gwây (expensive)

Yunmus aided by International Phonetic Symbols

long

  • aa [a] ("a" alone or followed by "g", "b", "d", "ng", "m", "n", "i", "u")
  • eh [ɛ] open-mid front unrounded
  • i [i]
  • oh [ɔ]open-mid back rounded
  • u [u]
  • oe [ɶ] open-mid front rounded
  • ue [y]

short

  • a [ɠ]open-mid back unrounded
  • e [e] close-mid front unrounded
  • o [o] close-mid back rounded

diphthongs

  • aay(ai) [ai]
  • ooy(oi) [ɔy]
  • uy [uy]
  • aaw(au) [au]
  • iu [iw]
  • ay [ɠj]
  • ey [ej]
  • oy [øy] (ø is mid-close front rounded)
  • aw [ɠu]
  • ow [ow]

Short vowels are those in short yunmus, and long vowels in long yunmus. All short vowels are pronounced with tighter, smaller enclosure of lips than are their long counterparts.

Orthography

Long yunmus followed by consonants:
  • Ru:
    • aap aat aak
  • Ping/shang/qu:
    • aam aan aang
    • ehk ehng
    • ip it im in
    • oht ohk ohn ohng
    • ut un
    • oet
    • uet uen

Short yunmus followed by consonants:
  • Ru:
    • ap at ak
  • P/S/Q:
    • am an ang
    • ek eng
    • ot ok on ong

Tones

Diacritic mark is usually displayed above the FIRST letter in a bi-letter vowel like "aa" and "oe":

  1. Yin1Ping2 or high Yin1Ru4 (Yam1Peng4 also high Yam1Yap6): aa1, äa (umlaut)
  2. Yin1Shang3(Yam1Soeng5): aa2, ãa (tilde)
  3. Yin1Qu4 or low Yin1Ru4 (Yam1Hoy3 also low Yam1Yap6): aa3, âa (circumflex)
  4. Yang2Ping2(Yoeng4Peng4): aa4, aa (plain)
  5. Yang2Shang3(Yoeng4Soeng5): aa5, áa (acute)
  6. Yang2Qu4(Yoeng4Hoy3): aa6, àa (grave)

'''6 tones represented by numerical scales of pitch, "1" being the lowest, "6" the highest"

  • First: "Jäw" tone, scale= 66
  • Second: "Hãw" tone, scale= 35
  • Third: "Dîm" tone, scale= 44
  • Fourth: "Hoh" tone, scale= 11
  • Fifth: "Mów", scale=24
  • Sixth: "Dòw", scale=22

Either the tone numbers 1-6 or the diacritic marks may be used

  • note: a shortcut for memorizing all 6 of them is a couplet:
Jaw1 Haw2 Dim3, Hoh4 Mow2 Dow6
Zhou1 Kou3 Dian4, He2 Mu3 Du4 (Mandarin)
(周口店, 河姆渡)

Zhoukoudian is an archeological site near Beijing containing a 500,000 year old Homo Erectus habitat; Hemudu is a Zhejiang archeological site of Neolithic human activities.